Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Day six

They are walking in the woods along the coastand in a grassy meadow, wasting, they come upontwo old neglected apple trees. Moss thickenedevery bough and the wood of the limbs looked rottenbut the trees were wild with blossom and a green fireof small new leaves flickered even on the deadest branches.Blue-eyes, poppies, a scattering of lupineflecked the meadow, and an intricate, leopard-spottedleaf-green flower whose name they didn't know.Trout lily, he said; she said, adder's-tongue.She is shaken by the raw, white, backlit flaringof the apple blossoms. He is exultant,as if some thing he felt were verified,and looks to her to mirror his response.If it is afternoon, a thing moon of my own dismayfades like a scar in the sky to the east of them.He could be knocking wildly at a closed doorin a dream. She thinks, meanwhile, that mossresembles seaweed drying lightly on a dock.Torn flesh, it was the repetitive torn fleshof appetite in the cold white blossomsthat had startled her. Now they seem tenderand where she was repelled she takes the measureof the trees and lets them in. But he no longerhas the apple trees. This is as sad or happyas the tide, going out or coming in, at sunset.The light catching in the spray that spumes upon the reef is the color of the lesser finchthey notice now flashing dull gold in the lightabove the field. They admire the bird together,it draws them closer, and they start to walk again.A small boy wanders corridors of a hotel that way.Behind one door, a maid. Behind another one, a manin striped pajamas shaving. He holds the numberof his room close to the center of his mindgravely and delicately, as if it were the key,and then he wanders among strangers all he wants.

~From Poets.org.

Post your poem of the day below in comments, or Gus & I can give you the log-in to make a main poem a day post.